Psychic hotline ordered to pay fine

A television psychic hotline has been ordered to pay a $75,000 fine for violating Missouri's no-call law, the state attorney general said Wednesday.

The St. Louis City Circuit Court ordered the payment against Access Resources Services Inc., a Fort Lauderdale company that is incorporated in Delaware and is best-known for promoting Miss Cleo's tarot psychic reading on television.

"This order makes it clear that you can't violate the no-call law without repercussions," Attorney General Jay Nixon said. "Thanks to the Missouri consumers who are part of the no-call team and are letting us know when they're called by telemarketers, we're sending a strong message that violators will be pursued."

Speaking with a Caribbean accent, Miss Cleo appears in national television commercials promising insights into love, money and other personal matters.

The order came in a lawsuit against Access Resources that alleged 94 violations of the state's no-call law, which allows Missouri residents to sign up on a list that bars telemarketers from calling them. The company faced fines of up to $5,000 per violation if found liable for calling people who requested privacy.

Under the order, the company will obtain a copy of the state's no-call list and direct employees not to call those numbers. More than 800,000 phone numbers are on the list.

Joel Dichter, the attorney representing Access on the no-call lawsuit, said the settlement was a practical decision.

"It was a business matter, to get this behind us and get this resolved, even though it is our position there was no violation of the law," Dichter said.

A separate lawsuit filed in Jackson County alleging that the company committed fraud by billing Missourians for supposedly free services is pending. The company insists it did nothing wrong.